


again, and again, and again

by kittenscully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Morning Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Romance, Shameless Smut, but like an emotional character study pwp, or basically just scully doing a lot of overthinking, or so I've heard people call it, s07: season of secret sex, which is a common state for her around mulder to absolutely no one's surprise, while being very horny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23263198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenscully/pseuds/kittenscully
Summary: He slept best like this, she knew – when she was naked and curled against him like the frond of a new fern, tender and spreading from how he had coaxed her open and unfurled and grasping till she glowed with the green ache of being alive. After, her eyelids always grew heavy as the weight of him against her, and he would keep his mouth pressed against her shoulder, her hair, her stomach, a kiss that didn’t linger so much exist timelessly, an anchor in her flesh to keep himself moored to her as a ship to the shore.[in which Dana Scully is learning how to let herself want.]
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 14
Kudos: 200





	again, and again, and again

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime in the general vicinity of s7, after they've been together for awhile but likely not publicly and not longer than a few months. It's not set at any particular time very distinctly, though. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @kittenscully, where this will probably also be posted. So many thanks to my dear @dykemulder for proofreading and constantly supporting me while I wrote and rambled about it! Please tell me what you thought, if you feel at all inclined!

Scully became aware of her awakeness slowly. 

Images of warm colors and lingering hands floated behind her eyelids, the hazy dream she was emerging from indistinguishable from memories of the previous night and indistinguishable from the press of bodies she found herself in as her consciousness settled back into her skin.

Her mind went to him before she processed his presence. _Mulder_ , she thought, mouth opening as if to murmur it aloud. And then, he sighed in his sleep, the hug of his body leaning closer as his breath puffed against her hair, and she pressed her lips together, not wanting to wake him. He slept best like this, she knew – when she was naked and curled against him like the frond of a new fern, tender and spreading from how he had coaxed her open and unfurled and grasping till she glowed with the green ache of being alive. After, her eyelids always grew heavy as the weight of him against her, and he would keep his mouth pressed against her shoulder, her hair, her stomach, a kiss that didn’t linger so much exist timelessly, an anchor in her flesh to keep himself moored to her as a ship to the shore. 

No, she would not wake Mulder. Not until she needed to hear his voice. And by then, he would need to hear hers even more. 

Slipping back into the present, she noticed again the press of his arm over her waist, up her torso. She remembered how he had laid it there as he pulled her impossibly closer in the warm darkness, his hand slipping underneath her body, tucked between the sandswept ridges of her ribs and the sheets beneath them both. 

He rarely moved while he slept, her Mulder. _It’s hard enough to knock out in one position, Scully,_ he’d joked, when she’d asked him absentmindedly one day about his sleeping habits over their third cup of coffee in the basement. _I’d wake myself up kicking around like a kid._ She had laughed and taken his word for it then, and nothing had disproven it since, even with the sixty-four – _no, sixty-five_ – times she’d fallen asleep in his arms.

He had moved this time, though, if only a little. The hand which had been tucked beneath her was decidedly less so, his broad palm covering her breast now, the pair of calloused fingers still trapped under her side keeping his touch solid and firm against her. Their lower bodies were more thoroughly intertwined, too, his upper thigh laid across her lower one, pressed between her legs in a way that would’ve felt restricting were he anyone other than the man she had spent seven years following like a heat-seeking missile. As it was, the close, crushing contact was more suggestive and seductive than anything else. 

A slow smile crept onto Scully’s face as she imagined teasing him about groping her even while asleep, and suddenly she missed him, his grin and the lilt of his voice and the flushed attention brought on by his gaze passing over her. While she devoured Mulder in her mind every time she looked at him, subsumed him in the raw hollow of her throat and chest, his eyes on her were colder, brighter, a striking foil to her own ferocity. Mulder struck her stock still with the intensity of his gaze, always had, redness creeping up the back of her neck and her breath coming ever quicker and quicker like a prey animal frozen in the searchlights.

A shiver ran through her body, and she felt all at once the stiffness of her nipple tucked into his palm. As if subconsciously misinterpreting her shudder as a chill, Mulder pressed in closer still around her, and his thigh brushed against her core. She caught her breath. _Oh._ The contact was barely anything, but it was substantial enough that were he awake, consciously feeling the slippery eagerness there, he would’ve pressed hard against her and teased her in a low voice. S _omeone’s been having sweet dreams_. 

And she would have blushed from her ears down to her toes, embarrassed and twice as desperate at the comment, like a teenager caught with her hand up the skirt of her Catholic school uniform.

Whatever dreams she’d had, she couldn’t remember, other than the keystone of his presence in every single one. And sweet wasn’t the word that came to mind, but often, no words came to mind, not for her, no commentary but the litany of his name that pulsed through her arteries, the desperate contractions of her heart finally struggling to make itself heard over the roar of blood swelling between her legs, drowning out all but the basest thoughts in the face of her numbing desire. 

Something deep in her abdomen stirred, cushioned red velvet crushing in on itself, aching in absence, and she couldn’t help but suck in a shallow gasp. Reactive as always to her movements, Mulder pressed his hips forward.

And then, she felt him, half hard and quickly stiffening further against the curve of her ass, and it was all over. 

It was common for men to wake up like this, even while alone, and of course, she knew that, in the part of her mind that clung still to reason. And she knew, too, both scientifically and firsthand, that it was equally common for women to wake up aroused, even if many weren’t so aware of the fact or properly equipped to take care of the issue at hand. There wasn’t any inherent intimacy in their physical responses to sleep and to waking, she told herself, creasing her brow in an attempt to rationalize her way out of the current situation. _But wasn’t there?_

Digging her fingernails into the sheet below her, she drew in a long breath through her nose, and immediately realized her mistake. Her head swam as the thick scent of her own arousal sent her into a dizzying spiral, made even more intoxicating by the still-lingering shame that came hand in hand with her sex drive. 

The urge to press back against him was almost too strong to resist, and she found herself grabbing on once again to the first conviction she’d had upon waking – her desire to let him rest, let him sleep, catch up on what he’d lost over the past few days after they had agreed that getting too close would distract them both from the case at hand. 

It was probably that period of abstinence which had rendered them both so insatiable the night before. Scully couldn’t see him, but she knew she’d left him marked and scratched as he had left her worn through and sore. It wasn’t that he was rough on purpose, because that wasn’t really his nature, although it had come to be hers. He wasn’t harsh, he was simply a man obsessed, addicted, single-minded in his fixation and in everything that followed, taking her apart rapidly under the heat of his tongue or in the palm of his hand, turning her into a heaving mess of a woman twice over before he even gave a thought to himself. Each time, she found herself surprised that her very cells hadn’t shaken apart from the force of his loving her.

More shocking, still, was the ever-present solidness of his body beneath hers, still in one piece even after she tore into him. Still with her, not disassembled or running from the force of her loving him back.

And now, she discovered, she was insatiable still, hungry even after riding him until all the fight went out of her and she collapsed into his arms, let him lay her down to make love to her instead. But the hunger wasn’t a demand for more so much as it was an invitation, a plea from her bruised mouth down to her strained, aching thighs to come in, come home, settle inside again, and again, and again, until the days of watching and wanting without ever being whole were nothing more than a distant memory. 

The craving wasn’t unexpected, not anymore. She couldn’t imagine herself without it, hadn’t passed a single afternoon in months without fantasizing about pressing her lips to his cupid’s bow or his sternum or the head of his cock. 

It wouldn’t have even been a problem, if she were capable of talking herself down now as she did every time the urge struck her at work. But as it was, his touch and breath were wreathed around her like smoke, unbearably close and intimate and yet at the same time not nearly close nor intimate enough. And now that she could feel his desire as physically as her own, there was no coming back from the cliff’s edge. 

Mulder would wake eventually, she reassured herself. By that time, she might even have calmed down enough to follow him into the kitchen for coffee, kiss his spine and shoulder blades and scratch her nails over the coarse hair running down the center of his chest, all hers, down his abdomen, down, down to where he was still – _shit._ Her back arched before she could stop it, the friction of his roughened palm rubbing against her nipple sending shockwaves through her tissue. She would sink to her knees with her mouth watering, demonstrate every risque thought she’d had since the first time she’d ended up staring at his belt buckle seven years ago, and then she would tell him with her ruined voice to have her on the counter, domestic and dirty, twice as good because of the anticipation, the delay, the waiting. 

But God, how she _hated_ waiting. 

Mulder would wake eventually, she reassured herself, and there would be no waiting beyond what he subjected her to with his low murmur of her name and his fingers slip-sliding over her folds, always exploring as if he hadn’t touched every corner of her body a dozen times over by now. Just like the night before, she would be moments away from toppling over the edge the moment his thumb touched her clit, dizzy and gasping from the addictive pain of being touched while so unbearably empty. He had always been so eager to please, her Mulder, but by now, he’d learned that pleasing her wasn’t always connected to doing what she attempted to demand of him. It wasn’t as if she was intimately familiar with her own body, not really – and he was in the process of working her out the way no one ever had, employing all the dogged determination she’d admired and resented throughout the years in his efforts to learn exactly what made her tick. So when he finally did press two digits bluntly into her, shoved against the trigger spot he’d found the very first time he’d touched her, she would shatter like glass, and it would be well-worth the time he had taken to play with her first. 

But, damn it, they had taken enough time, hadn’t they? 

Mulder would wake eventually. And there would be no more damned waiting. She would grab his shaft in her fist and he would be heavy handed and hazy from sleep, and her grip and her needy panting would be enough to convince him to thrust into her without any delay, just like this. And she wouldn’t be distracted with trying to memorize every feature of his face, and she wouldn’t be close to hurting him with her teeth or her nails with him behind her, and it wouldn’t be intense and overstimulating like it often was when he met her eyes and froze her in place. She would only be so, so full, surrounded by him inside and out, and when her eyes watered and her jaw hung open lazy and slack, he wouldn’t be able to see it and worry, would only clutch her so tightly there’d be no room left to think and fuck her like she _needed_ him to. 

Her cunt pulsed, and she gasped, rocking back uncontrollably and pressing his cock into his stomach. The feeling of him stirring from sleep was unmistakable. _Oh._

She licked her top lip, squirmed in place, and tried to figure out whether she had enough shame left in her to hope he was still unconscious. A quick scan from her curling toes to her clouded, fucked-out brain left her with a resounding no. _Why was it that she hadn’t woken him up right away, again?_

His hips rocked forwards, thigh pushing up against her pussy in a gesture she could only assume was instinctive rather than intentional, much like the throaty, sleepy groan she let out in response to the contact. And he was definitely awake now, shifting behind her, breath coming more quickly. She wondered briefly if she could pass off her own movements as unconscious ones.

“Scully,” he murmured hoarsely, his lips moving against the back of her head. 

_Mulder._ She opened her mouth, then immediately closed it again with a whimper as his arm squeezed around her middle. No chance of pretending to be asleep now.

She felt his head lift from the pillow, and then his lips were on the back of her shoulder, the side of her neck, open and lazy from sleep. They were likely intended to be casual kisses, the affection that he always gave her when he knew he was allowed, but she swore she could feel static electricity dancing on her skin with every bit of contact.

“Mulder,” she breathed, managing to get it out aloud this time, a flush of embarrassment immediately traveling all the way down to her chest as she heard the pure desperation in her own voice. 

He hummed, his thigh sliding against her wetness again, and she shuddered from head to toe. Anticipating his amusement, she squeezed her eyes shut, pursing her lips. And then, she heard it – or rather, felt it.

The deep chuckle from his chest, teasing her, just like she’d expected.

“Why, Scully,” he murmured, his mouth pressed to the corner of her jaw now. “Is that a faucet between your legs, or are you just happy to see me?”

She buried her face in the pillow, swearing her ears had turned red, feeling herself flood even wetter at the long-awaited sound of his voice.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she rasped, not looking back at him.

He kissed beneath her ear, then flexed his fingers, seeming finally to notice the placement of his hand on her chest. “Was this getting you worked up? Or was it some particularly sweet dream?”

“Shut up, Mulder,” she mumbled, knowing her words sounded more like a petulant whine than the teasing retort she wanted to give him. “You’re the one who grabbed for my tit in the middle of the night. This isn’t my fault.”

“What a fantastic thing to be blamed for,” he murmured in reply, a laugh right at the edge of his voice. 

“Mmm.” she hummed, and rolled her hips into his thigh, practically seeing stars at the long-awaited friction. 

“God, you are insatiable,” he said, and of course, he would’ve had the same thought as her, the same wording, even. But his tone wasn’t scolding, as hers had been when she’d reproached herself for her current state – instead, it was awed, even adoring, and thick with his own arousal. “You’re blushing, aren’t you?”

Scully nodded, swallowed hard and knew he could see it. He squeezed her breast in his palm, and she let out a soft moan. 

“I’ve always thought you’re prettiest like this, you know,” he commented.

“What, naked and in bed with you feeling me up?” She could barely hear her own voice with her face still pressed into the pillow, but she wasn’t willing to look at him and lose her capacity for speech along with the last remnants of her logical thought process. 

“Touche.” His fingers withdrew from under her, stroking down her waist, and she bit down on her lower lip as the warmth of his touch left her nipple to harden even further in the cooler air. “But I meant when you’re worked up and embarrassed about the fact.” 

“Does that happen a lot?” She meant it to sound incredulous, skeptical, and hoped that it did. 

“Well, I didn’t realize it was happening for a long time,” he replied, and his hand wandered to the top of her thigh, rubbing the skin there gently. “But it turns out I just didn’t know what to look for until I got you naked and realized that the blush went all… the way… down.” As he mouthed the words into her neck, his fingers slid under her thigh and brushed across the fine curls over her mound. 

“Mulder…” she murmured. She could already see what he had planned laid out in her head, just as she’d imagined it when she was waiting for him to wake up, and needed him to know she wanted something different.

His movements stopped immediately, his hand beginning to withdraw, and she melted at his sensitivity to her needs, her comfort. “Sorry, Scully, I didn’t mean to –” Quickly, she caught his hand below her belly button before it could inch further upwards, praying that he wouldn’t move backwards and let go of her entirely.

“No, Mulder,” she said, cutting him off before he could doubt himself any further, her heart squeezed so tight in her chest that she could feel her lip begin to quiver. The emotion was too much, her insides so soft with adoring him that she couldn’t even begin to find the right words to reassure his anxieties. “No, no, no. Don’t go anywhere.” _Please. I want you. Always._

“Okay.” His hand cupped the small swell of her abdomen, the softness she’d pinched and prodded and been so determined to lose. She couldn’t remember why, not with his touch gentle as ever there, almost like he was trying to soothe her, even with his erection still pressed against her. 

“I want you,” she said, out loud this time. 

“Yeah?” He asked, tentative and unassuming, so very different from his attitude just moments ago, and she smoothed her thumb over his knuckles, nestling her body back against his. 

“Always.” She wasn’t sure whether she’d meant to let that piece of vulnerability slip, but she didn’t bother even trying to regret the occurrence. 

“Scully…”

Craning her neck as sharply as she could, she finally looked at him, his face nuzzled into her collarbone, the silky waves of his hair crushed against her skin. The angle was awkward, but she ducked to kiss his forehead anyway, holding the tender contact as long as she could manage it. He lifted his head, meeting her gaze, and his eyes were honest and so full of emotion, all targeted towards her, that for a moment her lungs forgot how to function. When she managed to let out a shaky breath, he smiled just a little, beautiful and warm and hers. After a moment, he leaned up on his arm, ducking to press their lips together, almost chastely, a reassurance more for himself than it was for her. 

She squeezed his hand in hers, thumb tucking under his palm, and meant _it’s okay._

There was only one more moment of open-souled eye contact, and then he was nestling into the hollow of her throat once more, and she knew he’d understood.

“Always, Mulder.” she mumbled, settling her face back into the pillow, and his mouth opened against her skin, hot and wanting. Her body rose in response, the warmth coiling under his hand where it rested on her tummy, and she wanted, too, the words to articulate just what slipping past her reach. 

“You don’t want me to touch you,” he said, between long kisses to the base of her neck. It wasn’t a question so much as an attempt at puzzling out exactly what she needed from him when she couldn’t figure out how to say it, and she loved him, loved him, loved him. 

“Not like that,” she managed. 

“You do want me.” 

“I do.” _I’m burning alive with wanting you._

“I can feel that much,” he rumbled, nudging his knee up higher between her legs, prompting another roll of her hips and the shattering wave of pleasure that followed. “You want my mouth,” he suggested, so low that she felt it more than heard it.

“Right where it is now,” she panted, pressing her thumb deep into his palm and wiggling against the solid press of his cock.

“Scully…” he ground out her name heavily, reflecting her own need right back at her even as he attempted to hide it. 

She was aware of the reason for his reluctance without his needing to voice it. They hadn’t gone easy the night before, and she could still feel the ache from how deep she’d taken him, knew better than anyone how small her stature was in comparison to his. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbled, and of course, he would voice it anyway. 

“You won’t,” she replied, as soon as she could get the words out, and meant _it hurts more to be so damned empty when I need to be full of you_. The very thought was enough to make her cheeks redden.

“Are you sure?” His mouth grazed over the back of her neck. “Should I flip you over?”

She didn’t think he was aware of it, how his hips were canting forwards in small motions, rocking against her helplessly. Whether it was due to his subconscious need or a surge of rebellion against the remainders of the shame she thought she’d shaken off by now, she wasn’t sure, but before she could second guess herself, she was arching her back and reaching behind her to wrap her hand firmly around his cock. 

“Fuck, Scully –” he cursed, twitching in her fist. 

“Sure,” she managed to say, positive that he could feel the new rush of wetness against his thigh as she practically dripped in anticipation. “I’m – I’m sure.” 

“But –” he was protesting still, and it would’ve been sweet if his body hadn’t already begun to work towards what they both wanted, his leg sliding down and over hers as he inched lower and she tilted her hips, struggling to line him up with her entrance. 

“Mulder,” she groaned, meaning for it to be commanding but too addled with sex and sleep to manage it. She slid the head of his cock bluntly through her folds, and shuddered, sure that he could feel her pulse right there, in the clench of her center around nothing and the swollen, exposed live wire of her clit above. “ _Fuck me._ ” 

She knew she had broken him even before he finally moved. When he did, it was all at once, a surge of closeness, a shift of angle as his larger frame sank her onto her stomach. And then he was pushing inside with a slow, heavy thrust, and she was too overcome to process, too overcome to even moan, gasping and clawing at the sheets, her body trapped between wanting to escape the delicious pressure of opening and wanting to press backwards and take him in faster. 

As he slid home, settled deep and full, there was wetness on her cheeks, and she was glad he couldn’t see it and misunderstand, knew she wasn’t capable of explaining that her tears were from the catharsis of being complete rather than discomfort. If she could’ve wrapped her legs and arms around him she would have, just to have something to hold on to, just to stop him from ever moving away, ever withdrawing, ever leaving her so crushingly empty again. 

His hips were perfectly still as he let her adjust, and it seemed unfair, impossible even, how she always needed time, even when she had fucked him for ages so recently, even when she was quivering for him to move. She whined before she could stop herself, feeling her cunt twitch, every nerve ending spitting sparks, every muscle ready to spasm as she stretched and reformed to hug him inside where he belonged.

“Scully,” he panted. 

The effort in speaking at all was evident in his voice, and she knew that he was checking in like he always did, asking _are you okay, is this okay, am I hurting you._ But figuring out how to respond out loud was a fight that she couldn’t even figure out how to initiate, all the blood flow concentrated between her legs as she sucked him in like a drowning woman. 

His palm was on her belly still, trapped now beneath her body as the weight of him forced her further into the sheets, and she knew she couldn’t reach for it. As his lips pressed tenderly to her jawline, her hand moved without prompting, lifting off the sheets and reaching behind her to push into his hair. It didn’t take effort, or even conscious thought, to run her fingers through the strands, cradle the top of his head as she’d done so many times before, hoping he would understand the reassurance that she couldn’t put to words. 

“I love you.” He murmured it against the silky skin, just below her ear, breathless and adoring, and she would never get used to the revelation of hearing him say it, not if he told her every hour for the rest of their lives. 

There wasn’t enough oxygen left in her to reply, but he knew that, knew how she lost coherency and control when she was too stimulated and could only focus on so many things at once without collapse. And he was full of himself enough to know that being full of him was utterly overwhelming, especially in the first moments, when all she could do was squirm and gasp for air and _want_ until it wasn’t enough. 

“Mulder,” she finally managed, raspy and weak, aware of the urgency in his tongue on her neck. He hummed, and she swore she could feel the vibrations in her own body, right down to where the head of his cock was nestled inside her, too deep and not deep enough and absolutely perfect. “ _Move._ ”

He obeyed instantly, sighing his relief into her skin and winding back just enough to thrust into her shallowly. Before he even completed the movement, she wanted to tell him _harder_ , but then, the impact of his hips against her ass rippled through her bones and all she could do was drag her nails across his scalp and arch her back the best she could to wordlessly ask for more. His breath caught and she felt it, threading her fingers through his hair more tightly to tug how he liked, an expression of gratitude for knowing her better than she did. 

This was the way he had learned to treat her, after the initial eagerness brought on by finally being allowed to taste her at the source – to unravel her slowly, giving her exactly what she wanted and not a touch more, adding sensations one at a time so she could enjoy each one as it came, often murmuring endearments as he did. The slide of his cock in and out, shallow but meaningful, was just enough to turn the ache into satisfaction. The kisses pressed to her neck were all lips and tongue, nothing harsh that would drive her to distraction or hurt her.

They didn’t do it like this often, with her back to his front, and when they had in the past, it required her to be bent over, a submissive and impersonal position that didn’t suit them in the slightest. He liked to look at her, and she loved how he did, penetrating and hungry and adoring as he filled her in that way that hit her right where she needed, over and over. But there was something about this new, close position that made her spine tingle – the heightened ache and how big he felt, the incredible intimacy of trusting him without needing to see him, the knowledge that it would take longer to come at this angle, especially at this pace. 

He would know when she was ready for more. He always did. She knew him the same way, knew when to cup his face in her hands and kiss him gently, when to pin him against a wall by his chest, when to carve pink lines into his shoulders with her nails and when to touch him so softly he forgot that anyone had ever treated him harshly. Sometimes, she wondered if loving him was a casualty of knowing him, or if it was the other way around, or whether both had come into being side by side, hand in hand, as they walked together into the great unknown. 

And then, his teeth sank into her neck, and she forgot to wonder anything at all.

She didn’t feel the moan coming till it was already upon her, and then his cock slammed into her, _harder_ , just like she’d wanted, and she could feel the mark he was sucking onto her neck blossoming like blood in the water. His face was buried in her skin, breathing her in hungrily, tracking her shark-like, needy to consume her just like she was devouring him, tugging his hair in her fist like a lifeline in the deepening water. 

The push of his hips came faster now, making her whole body shudder, his length rubbing just enough against that spot that made her unravel. She didn’t need to squeeze her eyes shut to focus on feeling like usual, not with her face already hidden in the pillow, and she couldn’t squirm away from the aching fullness and didn’t want to. 

It should’ve felt like being trapped, unfamiliar and wrong like the singular time she’d asked him to hold her down, but it didn’t, couldn’t, not with his body cradling hers, his arm holding her close, his scent like warmth and sex and home wreathed around her, every bit of it so intuitively recognizable as _him_. 

The suction of his mouth released her throat, and then his lips were pressing softly to the bruise, tongue lapping over it in a gentle apology for his possessiveness, for leaving a physical reminder of their intimacy that others could see. It was an apology he didn’t need to make, not when she had been declaring herself his practically since the day she’d met him and waiting to be claimed like this for nearly as long. 

He pressed his palm into her abdomen, and started to drive into her, almost like he was fucking his fist. The angle and the weight made her groan, the cotton pillowcase squeaking under her teeth, her cunt throbbing and squeezing around him.

“This is… this really is what you wanted,” Mulder panted, husky and strained and marveling in her ear, and oh, his voice had always undone her, always brought her careening into his atmosphere in a blaze of white hot cataclysm. “You needed it again – hell, you dreamed of it, even after taking it till you couldn’t handle a single thrust more, didn’t you?” 

_Yes, god yes, yes._ She wanted to scream it loud enough to wake the neighbors, loud enough to scare off anything that threatened to pull him away. Rocking back against him the best she could, she felt her wetness dripping onto the sheets, sticky and messy and constant. _Always, always want to feel complete like this, over and over and over and —_

“Gorgeous,” Mulder exhaled, and she reflexively clenched so tight, ever responsive to his praise, that his next words turned into a moan before he could even start to say them.

_You are,_ she replied in her head, hoping with her last hint of conscious thought that she would remember to tell him later. 

She knew from the way he held her that he was close, and knew from how he breathed that he was too drunk on sweat and friction to say it. Need thrummed through her, the equal and opposite reaction to the urgency of his thrusts, her insides contracting in anticipation, her fingers twisting in the unruliness of his hair. 

His hand moved, finally, crawling down her body to cup her pubic bone, fingers sliding through her slick folds and finding her clit, crushing the bud between two knuckles like flower petals. 

If she hadn’t been muffled by the pillow, she was sure they would’ve heard her moans in a twelve mile radius, a siren in preparation for the shockwave that would shake her any moment now. Mulder was sucking on the bruise again, his jaw locked tight tight tight, and that was his warning sign. 

Her last thought was a desperate protest against their oncoming climax, a squeezing of fists in brown locks and white sheets, an irrational plea not to let this be over, not to make them divide into two from one, not to be less than whole, not again, _not yet, not yet, not yet —_

It hit like a power surge, flooding every muscle in her body with tension and pleasure and unbearable fullness, the pulsing inside as he came too driving her higher and higher, and just as she thought they must be glowing so bright the curtains couldn’t keep the light from escaping, everything went black. 

She came back to herself in gasping breaths, flashes of awareness, her eyes still squeezed shut.

The slippery fingers still circling slowly between her legs, where she was almost numb, only the shadow of an ache hiding deep under his touch.

His free hand, white knuckled in the sheets. 

Heavy panting against her shoulder, like moisture breathed onto a car window where he would draw hearts, _M + S_ , teenagers in love. 

The sweet, dear lines between his brows that she would run her thumb over soon, deepened with his newly regained concentration on not slowing too soon, not moving too quickly.

The beautiful fullness lessening as he softened inside her, no soreness taking its place, not yet, not with the warmth that filled her belly like a newly stoked fire, sheltered from the wind by the curve of his body.

His forehead resting on the back of her neck, her fingers still wrapped in his hair, holding him to her lest he try to back away. 

Two minds connected, old partners who spoke without saying a word.

Two lovers, seen from above, tangled in each other, the extent of the world the four corners of her bed and the curve of his spine. 

She turned her chin to rest her cheek on the pillow and blinked open her eyes, the low light bright and golden pink after the darkness she’d buried herself in. He nuzzled into the base of her skull, kissed the top vertebra of her spine, and she softened her hand, stretching out the tired joints before running her palm over the crown of his head contentedly. 

“Hey,” he said, his fingers finally ceasing their motion and cupping her center gently instead. 

“You are,” she croaked, remembering what she had wanted to tell him before. 

There was a chuckle, and she smiled before she could even think. She felt him shift, and then his face was entering her peripheral vision, an affectionate, lazy grin on his face. _Mine,_ she thought, unprompted. 

“I’m what, Scully?” he asked, and she wet her lips and shook her head, realizing how nonsensical her delayed reply must’ve sounded. 

“Gorgeous,” she murmured, warmth layering on top of warmth as she basked in his gaze, reflecting it right back at him like a mirror to the sun. “You’re gorgeous.” 

He was struck silent for a moment, disarmed, his mouth still upturned in a smile but his eyes surprised and utterly vulnerable. Brushing his hair back from his forehead, she drew him closer, craning her neck to kiss him softly. Her spine protested the twist, and she let him go after only a moment, but he stayed close, his nose nestling against the hollow of her cheek.

“Y’know, Scully,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, and she knew instantly that he was about to make a joke, turn it back on her, still unused being complimented in such an honest way. “As an Oxford-educated psychologist, I think the correct scientific term for what you just did is _projecting_.” 

She suppressed a giggle, and shook her head, knowing he could feel both.

“I mean it, Mulder.” Her voice was weaker than she’d expected, but it didn’t need to be strong, not when it was only them and the world was so small she could touch the edges of it with her fingertips simply by tracing the wings of his shoulder blades. 

He shook his head right back, but it felt more like he was nuzzling into her skin. Her face would hurt from smiling soon, but it would be a comfortable pain, a happy pain, like the ache she could feel growing between her legs as he shifted and slipped out and the numbness dissipated. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said suddenly, worried that he might, and he only laughed, his chest vibrating against her back. 

“It’s Saturday, and you’re right here,” he said. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Good.” 

He was laughing again, but it was a giddy sort of laugh, and she couldn’t blame him, thought that she’d be laughing, too, if she had the energy. In this post-coital warmth, there was nothing left hidden, no lurking shame, no uncertainty, no desperation. The sound of his voice was like coming home, the cradle of his arms like settling in for the winter, and the scent of him so close like a well-worn sweater, safe and sheltered and known intimately and wholly.

“You liked that,” he observed.

_Ever the perceptive investigator_. She always forgot that he liked to talk after, even though every time it happened she was entirely unsurprised.

“I loved that,” she corrected, leaving out the half-hearted sarcasm, and he kissed the corner of her still-smiling mouth. 

“I thought you didn’t like it from behind,” he said, genuinely curious.

“Neither do you,” she reminded him, and he nodded. 

“Why was this different?” 

She shrugged, and meant _let me think_. And he did, as well as he could in his affectionate, increasingly interactive state. By kissing her cheekbone, her jaw, her earlobe, her temple, the place where there would’ve been a dimple, if she’d had one, the side of her nose –

“Mulder!” she exclaimed, softly, scrunching up her nostrils.

“Sorry, Scully,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” she replied, rolling her eyes with no malice whatsoever.

“No, I’m really not.”

“I think it was different because…” she sighed, trailed off, distracted by how intensely he was staring at her. As if he could read her mind, he ducked his head, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “Because I could hide my face and just listen, and feel, and breathe. And because you were, um… you were close to me.” _Holding me._

He nodded, placed a kiss on her back, and didn’t question her further. She suspected that he wouldn’t, even in the future, that he knew her well enough to understand exactly what she meant. After a moment, his hand finally shifted away from her sensitive core, wedging its way up between her torso and the sheets until he could wrap his arm fully around her middle. Until he could hold her.

“I love you,” he whispered. 

And she knew, of course she knew. But in a moment of irrationality, she swore that her heart would’ve escaped from her chest the moment he said it, had he not been pinning her down to earth with the weary frame of his body.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, and meant exactly that. 


End file.
